Leftists graffiti sidewalk in front of YAF students’ 9/11 memorial

Students across the country have set up memorial flag displays on campus to honor the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. While many are thankful for the display of patriotism, members of Notre Dame (ND) Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) were met with pushback.

As ND students arrived to the campus quad to set up the flag memorial, they found sidewalk graffiti reading “500,000 Iraqis murdered” written in chalk beneath the campus flagpole.

Members of the ND YAF chapter told Red Alert Politics that the chalk message was deliberately left for them in regards to 9/11. They’ve held the event in the same place for the past four years and invited the student body to participate.

“We advertised for the event prior on social media and class Facebook pages saying all students were invited, that this isn’t just a YAF event but it’s for the campus community,” they told Red Alert Politics.

The ND students were taking part in YAF’s 9/11: Never Forget Project, which empowers students from across the country to “properly remember” the “innocents murdered by radical Islamists.” The nationwide project started in 2003 when YAF “discovered that most college campuses were either completely ignoring the anniversary or holding a politically correct event instead,” according to their website.

“We find it very sad that somebody attempted to anonymously, under the cover of night, desecrate the site of our memorial remembering the death of nearly 3,000 innocent humans with this unnecessary rhetoric,” stated Matthew Bartilotti, Notre Dame student and member of Notre Dame YAF’s executive board.

Notre Dame officials did not return request for comment in time for publication.